


Taste Of Freedom

by WrenAndPoppy



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, M/M, Past Abuse, happy-ish, implied Fenris/Danarius - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 22:35:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7407856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrenAndPoppy/pseuds/WrenAndPoppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Freedom is a hard thing when all you’ve known your whole life is luxurious captivity.  But Fenris wouldn’t trade the hardships of freedom for all the silk pillows in Thedas.  If freedom means fighting those who would seek to abuse him, he’ll do that too.</p><p>A pre-DA2 ficlet about Fenris' journey to Kirkwall.</p><p>Warning: Vivid sexual assault, past abusive relationship (Danarius).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taste Of Freedom

The coast was sticky.  Even with the breeze coming off the ocean, sweat beaded on Fenris’s forehead and neck.  He wiped the hot drops away with the back of his hand as he wandered between mossy rocks and scraggly trees.  The trail under his sore feet was uneven, a jagged scree of shells and shale and twigs, but it was better than climbing his way through the brambles and boulders on either side of the path, and it was less exposed than the beach.

 _At home I had a nice soft bed to crawl into._ The thought sprang unbidden to his mind, his legs aching as they dragged him forward step after step.   _There were cool pools in the garden, and sometimes I was allowed to bathe in them._

Fenris swallowed hard and pushed the tantalizing thoughts aside, straightening his spine.  It made his gut twist that part of him already _missed_ the comforts of his captivity.  Freedom was hard.  It pounded against his head like the oppressive sunlight, it crusted under his nails.  Freedom made his back ache and his legs scream.  It sat in his hollow stomach, burning.

Part of him, the part of him that had pressed into his Master’s hand when Danarius had fondly stroked his hair, wished he’d never tasted it.

Fenris clenched his jaw against the memories.  He shifted the bag on his back and picked up his pace.  This wasn’t truly freedom, this was just a setback.  Somewhere along this coast was a city called Kirkwall, a city where he could find work to earn himself more food than the single stale loaf in his bag right now.  He had clothes on his back, a handful of coppers in his pocket, and a rusty sword at his hip that he’d found lying in a bush as he walked.  He was going to earn himself a better life.  That was what freedom was.  And he would do all of it on his own, without a master holding his leash.

Fenris might be sleeping in the pine straw under trees now instead of in a feather bed, but at least he knew no one would try to crawl in beside him.  He never had to submit his body to someone’s unwanted touches again.  And that made the pine straw sweeter than his master’s feather pillows had ever been.

As Fenris walked through the mossy trees that lined the sweaty coast, something in the shrubs rustled.  Fenris tensed, his hand flying to the hilt of his rusted sword.  The thin trail was silent, aside from the distant crying of gulls.  A moment later, there was another rustle, and three humans stepped out of the greenery and stopped on the path in front of him, blocking his way.  Fenris drew his sword, taking a step back.  The humans wore mismatched armor and unfriendly smiles, and he had a feeling they weren’t there to help him.

“A loner,” one of them remarked, a tall man with blond hair and a bored glare.  “This should be quick.  Shall we relieve him of his valuables?”

Fenris gripped his sword tighter.  “ … I have no valuables.  I have a stale loaf of bread, and a few coppers that are probably worth less.”

“A likely story,” quipped another bandit.  Her dark hair hung over her shoulder in a braid, and an axe dangled lazily from her hand.  “You could have gold stitched inside your clothes for all we know.”

“You heard the woman,” called the third bandit.  “Take your clothes off so we can make sure there’s no gold in them!”

Fenris took another step back.  His heart was starting to pound.  “L-let me pass.  I don’t have anything.”

The third bandit was giving Fenris a hungry look that made his skin crawl.  The man’s short hair was dark, his jaw dusted with a scruff that might have been considered roguishly handsome if he wasn’t leering.  “We won’t know that until we strip you down, will we?”

Fenris shifted his grip on his sword, his breath coming short and shallow.  His pulse was racing.  

A twig snapped behind him.  Without thinking, Fenris spun and swung his sword in a ferocious arc, and his blade slammed into the neck of a startled bandit that stood behind him, knife raised.

For a moment, Fenris froze, breathing hard.  Blood spurted from the bandit’s neck where Fenris’s sword was lodged in it, and his blank eyes dimmed.  The man’s body gave out and he collapsed, nearly yanking Fenris’s weapon out of his hands.  Fenris hissed in alarm and struggled to wrench his weapon free, trying to turn to face the bandits that were now snarling behind him.

“Slit his throat!”

“No, leave the bitch alive so we can _play_ with him!”

Fenris abandoned his blade and ducked out of the way as an axe sliced the air where he had just been standing.

“Dammit, what the fuck did I just tell you?” one of the bandits barked.

The woman swung her axe again, and Fenris tried to jump out of the way.  They were fanning out, surrounding him.

“Easy does it, knife-ear,” the bandit with the blond hair called.  “Why don’t you just toss your bag over here and lay down so we can search you.  We’ll make this burglary nice and quick.”

“Or not,” interrupted the bandit with the leer.  “What’s the rush?  We can take all morning.”

Fenris tried to keep all the bandits in his vision at once, spinning on his heel.  His sword was buried in the neck of the dead man just a few feet away, tempting him.  He wished he could use the hot white lines that crossed his palms and fingers, burn his enemies with raw lyrium, but he couldn’t do it without Danarius here.  Danarius had controlled even that part of his body, some silent connection that had allowed Fenris to access his Fade powers only in defense of his master, never for his own use.

The pale lines on his hands were useless now.  He was truly unarmed without his sword.

“I hear elves are smooth all over.”  The bandit with the dark hair dragged his tongue over his teeth.  “Are you nice and soft, knife-ear?”

Fenris ripped his gaze away from the bandit and dashed for his sword.  He didn’t get more than two paces before a solid body slammed into him, knocking him off his feet.  They thudded into the ground in a hot tangle of limbs, the bandit’s long braid dangling in Fenris’s face as she struggled to pin his arms down.

“Get _off_ me!”  The words burst out of him, fueled by panic and fury.  His heart was racing, and he could almost feel Danarius’s breath on his neck.  “Let me go, _stop_ – !”

The bandit grabbed his ear and twisted.  Fenris let out a shout of pain, kicking wildly and trying to throw her off while she laughed.

“He _is_ soft!”

Fenris let out a snarl of frustration as he felt someone grab his legs, sitting on them painfully.  He felt a hungry hand grab his thigh, squeezing, and he thrashed.

“ _No!”_

“Pin him down for me,” came a low growl.  “We’ll see how well he fights when someone’s between his legs.”

“ _Stop it!”_ The panic in his gut was swelling, eclipsing the rage.  The intrusive hand on his thigh felt like it was burning his skin.  “S-stop, get the fuck off – ”

“Stop fooling around, you two.”  

A few feet away, Fenris could see the blond bandit leaning down to pick up his bag where he had dropped it.  The man sighed as he flipped it open.  “Just cut his throat or let him go.  We’ve got his bag.”

The hand on Fenris’s leg moved higher.  “Let him go?  He killed Gregor!”

“So what?”  The blond bandit scoffed, digging through Fenris’s bag.  “You hate Gregor.  We all hate Gregor.  He’s an asshole.  Is anyone actually upset that he’s dead?”

The bandits pinning Fenris shifted, the woman lifting off his chest for a moment.  He gasped in air, trying and failing to wrench his arms out of her grip before she settled behind his head.  She wrenched his arms back, forcing his body to arch up, laughing at the cry it pulled from him.  Fenris twisted with a frantic whine.  He was staring down the length of his own helpless body at the leer of the other bandit.

“Principles, mate,” sneered the man.  He was pinning Fenris’s legs down with his weight, his hands wandering greedily up Fenris’s thighs.  “He kills one of us, he doesn’t get off easy.”

The blond bandit sighed and dug around in Fenris’s bag.  “Whatever.  Just don’t be long.”

A calloused hand pressed between Fenris’s legs, squeezing.  A hot bolt of panic shot down Fenris’s spine and he bucked wildly, but the humans were stronger than him.  His body was underfed and exhausted, and they held him down easily.  The man groaned, his hand still kneading slowly, and Fenris’s stomach dropped sickeningly as he realized he couldn’t stop this.

“Found any gold yet?” the bandit with the braid taunted.

The hands squeezed, fondling his soft cock through his pants.  “Mmm, can’t tell.  There’s _something_ in here, that’s for sure.”

The man started unlacing his pants.  A sob ripped from Fenris’s throat.  This couldn’t be happening.  He’d escaped Danarius.  He’d promised himself no one would ever do this to him again.

A hand grabbed his thin linen shirt, dragging it up over his chest, exposing him.  The rough heel of the man’s hand bumped against Fenris’s lyrium scars, sending overstimulated jolts through them that made him gasp.

“Ooooh, watch your hands, I think he likes that.”

“I _don’t!”_ Fenris shouted.  He was shaking under the hungry gazes that roamed over his exposed body.  “S-stop it, j-just let me go – !”

A hand slipped into his pants, hungry fingers pressing into his bare skin.  Fenris shouted and pulled as hard as he could against the powerful grip pinning his wrists to the floor, but he couldn’t wrench himself free.  Calloused fingers teased between his legs, groping him, giving him a taunting squeeze.  Fenris’s struggles faltered, his chest heaving in the sticky air.

This was really going to happen, and there was nothing he could do.

“Mmh.  Smooth and soft.  Like he was made for this.”

He’d thought that freedom meant he was allowed to say no.  That his body was his own, that no one could touch it without his permission.  Fenris’s head was feeling light, his vision swaying as he stared up at the moss swaying in the trees overhead, his breath coming in short gasps.  He could feel the man’s hand sliding lower between his legs, feel one rude finger pressing at his hole, but he couldn’t move beyond a terrified tremble.  

“That’s it, knife-ear,” the man groaned.  His finger pushed, nearly teasing inside, and Fenris choked down another sob.  “Nice and tame.”

“Please – ”  The word spilled out of him before he could stop it.  His whole body was shaking, his breathing shallow and rapid.  “P-please, don’t – ”

The man groaned again, his finger pushing deeper.  Fenris tugged helplessly against the hands pinning him down, a thin noise slipping through his clenched teeth.  He could see the bulge of the man’s arousal, straining against his pants.

“N-no… ”  He could barely form the word through his gasping breaths.  His lyrium scars tingled uncomfortably from the rough touches, itching.  “N-no, no, stop – ”

“Let’s keep him,” the woman purred.  

The man laughed, finally slipping his finger out of Fenris’s body and removing his hand from the elf’s pants.  He grabbed the thin material, ready to rip it open, take Fenris right there on the path.  “Good.  I hear elves made the best sex slaves.”

_Slave._

The white lines on his body roared from a tingle to a burn.  With a snarl of effort, Fenris wrenched _hard_ against the hands pinning him to the floor, and his wrist phased through her grip like he was a ghost.  The momentum flung Fenris’s arm at the chest of the man leaning over him, and instead of thumping against a solid body, Fenris’s arm thrust _through_ armor and flesh and ribs as if the man was made of air.

Fenris panted hard, his eyes wide, staring at the place where his arm disappeared into the man’s body.  He could feel a hot slickness against his skin, something dribbling.  The man’s face had gone pale with shock.  A single gurgling noise escaped him, and he slumped sideways, sliding off of Fenris’s arm and falling dead onto the ground next to him.

The other bandit cursed violently, springing away from him and drawing her axe again.  Fenris sat up slowly, his heart pounding, staring at the white lyrium lines on his bloody arm.  They were alive with a cold glow, phasing in and out of existence at his will.

_How…?_

“Shit _–_!”  The bandit with the blond hair barked a curse, dropping Fenris’s bag.  “What the fuck did he _do?”_

“I don’t know!” the woman shouted.

… Danarius had lied to him.  Fenris’s jaw tightened.  Danarius had claimed that Fenris couldn’t use the lyrium scars on his own.  Another hidden leash to keep him in line.  Fenris clenched his fist until the knuckles cracked, watching sparks fly from the scars on his hand.  He stood up, his furious eyes lifting to the remaining two bandits.

The woman backed up another step in open fear.  “W-what do we do?”

Fenris’s lip curled.  He strode towards the bandits with fast, thumping strides, not stopping as they both flinched back.

“ _Run,_ ” he ground out, the scars on his arms flickering to blinding life.  “Or _die_.”

The bandits turned and fled, their feet pounding down the trail away from him.  Fenris let out a shuddering breath, dropping his gaze to the two corpses and the bag on the trail next to him.  He knelt down and began digging through the dead men’s pockets for coin.

Everything Danarius had told him had been a lie.  That he’d never survive on his own.  That he owed anyone sex.  That the scars couldn’t be used for his own needs.  Fenris pocketed a handful of coppers and a few silver off the two men, leaving his rusty sword buried in the neck of the dead bandit and taking the other man’s sword instead.  After a moment, he unbuckled the man’s armor and began to strap it on as well.  The studded leather chestpiece had an arm-sized hole in the middle, as clean as if it had been sliced away with the sharpest blade.  It would leave an opening in his defenses, but Fenris buckled it on anyway.  He wanted everyone to know what he could do.

He wanted _himself_ to know what he could do.

With his bag weighing heavier with coin over his shoulder and a shiny new sword at his side, Fenris left the two corpses on the ground and continued his journey down the jagged trail.  A wind gusted off the ocean and filtered through the trees, washing the heat from his forehead, making his hair dance.

Somewhere along this coast was a city called Kirkwall.  Fenris was going to find it, and he was going to earn himself a better life.  If anyone ever treated him like an object again, he’d put his fist through their chest.


End file.
